1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a retrieval system for accumulating documents comprising images and retrieving documents from the accumulated documents based on user operations, as well as to a method of displaying retrieved results in the system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Multi-functional peripherals, which combine the features of printers, copiers, faxes, etc., can be installed not only in offices, but also in lobbies, reception rooms, meeting rooms, and other public spaces.
For this reason, it is believed that it is becoming increasingly important in office work to be able to quickly search and output target documents from the nearest multi-functional peripherals during unstructured time, such as waiting time spent in appointments, during meetings, or while in transit from one location to another, etc.
On the other hand, in many cases, a search process involving storage facilities coupled to the network results in a huge number of document hits. For this reason, for a set of documents comprising a large number of accumulated documents, it is necessary to define search conditions so as to keep the number of search hits below a certain level. However, setting precise search conditions requires search process know-how. The unavailability of such know-how may lead to a situation, wherein even the creators of the documents themselves will not be able to retrieve the documents they created in a simple manner.
In a document retrieval system, in which users look for documents they need among a huge number of accumulated documents, the users enter the search conditions with the help of a special search screen. In case of a large number of documents satisfying the entered search conditions, the users must further perform the following operations in order to accomplish their goal.
First of all, as a first countermeasure, it is contemplated to redo the search by setting more stringent search conditions in the belief that the reason might be due to excessively loose search conditions.
Next, as a second countermeasure, it is contemplated to execute a so-called search refinement, during which the initially retrieved search results are narrowed down by adding other search conditions, without resetting the initial search conditions and clearing the search results, as it was done in the above-described first countermeasure. Here, if the additional search conditions are appropriate, the number of document hits can be made smaller than the initial number of hits, thereby making it possible to narrow down the range of the desired documents.
Furthermore, as a third countermeasure, it is contemplated to drop the idea of redoing the search based on other search conditions because it is impossible to set conditions that would be more appropriate than the specified search conditions and, instead, to find the target documents by sequentially examining the documents retrieved in the initial search one by one. If the attributes of the documents, in other words, the titles, creators, creation dates, comments, etc., of the documents, are shown at such time on the screen displaying the retrieved document list, there may be cases, in which it might be possible to find the target documents based on such attribute information. Otherwise, however, a certain time will be necessary to start up a document viewer or a document application in order to make a determination by checking the respective contents of the retrieved documents and, therefore, the operation of sequentially examining the retrieved documents will require considerable time. Furthermore, it is also contemplated that the search results in the above-described first and second countermeasures will not be sufficiently narrowed down and there will remain a large number of document hits. In such a case, users are forced to use the third countermeasure, that is, to sequentially search the target documents in the retrieved document list.
An effective way to reduce the effort of the users associated with the above-described search process is for the document retrieval system to distinguish documents that the users may consider necessary and display them in a preferential manner in comparison with the other retrieved documents. Changing the display order of the search results in this manner has the advantage of making it possible to find the target documents more quickly when the users perform the checking operation starting from the beginning of the retrieved document list. In this manner, the users can retrieve the desired documents in an efficient manner by dynamically optimizing the order, in which the search results are displayed.
As a means therefore, during retrieval of documents registered in multi-functional peripherals installed in various locations, the documents that the users may consider necessary are inferred from the installation sites of the multi-functional peripherals and from the timing of the searches. It is contemplated that it is effective to provide a technology for rearranging and displaying the search results in a suitable order.
As a result of noise reduction measures, size reduction, and progress in the design of multi-functional peripherals, multi-functional peripherals are now installed in lobbies, reception rooms, meeting rooms, and other office-like locations that were not considered in the past, with the peripherals being interconnected through a network and capable of offering various services. Accordingly, the users who make use of these multi-functional peripherals now include company employees from various departments and even external parties. In such a situation, it is believed that, depending on the locations where the multi-functional peripherals are installed, the intentions of the users who employ them will exhibit particular trends. For example, in situations that often arise in lobbies and reception rooms, new additional reference materials become necessary during informal discussions between company employees and external parties. During such discussions one might wish to retrieve and present the necessary documents right on the spot. In other words, it is believed that users executing searches in a lobby or reception room are highly likely to retrieve documents intended for use during meetings and informal discussions taking place during that particular time period. Thus, the retrieval system works in cooperation with a reservation system for meeting rooms and visiting schedules of external parties, and checks them against the search times and installation sites of the multi-functional peripherals, on which the searches are executed. It is believed that, under such circumstances, the documents that users might consider necessary can be found within a shorter period of time if the display order of the retrieved documents is rearranged in such a manner that visitor-and meeting-related documents among the documents matching the search conditions are shifted to a higher priority on the search results list.
However, at present, search results are always displayed in the same order and degree of priority according to the searcher's access rights and specified search conditions no matter where the multi-functional peripherals or PCs are located, regardless of parameters such as the locations, in which the multi-functional peripherals are installed, or the times when the searches are executed. For instance, even when conducting an attribute search, that is, conducting a search by specifying document attribute information, such as document titles, creators, and the like, the same results are always returned in a fixed fashion when conducting a search under the same conditions, with the results displayed simply in the order, in which they were obtained, in accordance with the internal algorithms that the retrieval system has.
Moreover, while there are systems that dynamically vary the arrangement of the document hits, what they do is to consider the frequency of access and the frequency of use of documents so as to display the documents that are frequently used in higher positions on the list.
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-049972, the frequency of use of documents stored in a document storage means is calculated and, after the frequency of use is obtained, it is stored in a memory location. Information on the documents stored in the document storage means is then displayed by the display unit of an operational input means in order of descending frequency of use. According to the disclosed technology, along with displaying information on the documents stored in the document storage means in the order of descending frequency of use, the system accepts selection inputs that select the documents the users want to get, reads the image data of the selected documents from the document storage means and displays it on the display unit of the operational input means.
Thus, in any of the conventional search methods, the display order of the search results is determined without any regard to the environment, in which the users are located. For this reason, it is believed that the documents the users need may often appear at the end of the sorting order. Accordingly, the checking operation requires a lot of time before it locates the desired documents, which is not suitable for searches executed while being engaged in an informal discussion or walking down a corridor using multi-functional peripheral installed there. For this reason, it is believed that users will tend to abandon the idea of using the multi-functional peripheral to perform the search and will return to their workplace in order to re-do the search.